


Willow and Palm Trees

by sophinisba



Series: Three Travelers that Never Landed on the Lost Island [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost
Genre: Community: purimgifts, Crossover, Gen, Jewish Character, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-20
Updated: 2008-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba





	Willow and Palm Trees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roga/gifts).



Willow's just starting to get the hang of travel by astral projection when she slips from a tree branch in a lush tropical jungle and realizes she can't project her way out of a hard landing. Even once she's lying flat on the ground she can't really stand to move, let alone find her way home. So, maybe she'll be stuck here for a little while, but she's made her way out of worse situations before. That's what she always tells herself.

There's a rustling of leaves a few yards away, and a few minutes later three men are standing over her and one of them, a Korean guy, who must be the one who saw her fall, points down at her and says simply, "Other."

"Like I haven't heard _that_ before," Willow mutters to herself, but then she smiles at them. "Help me up, guys? I got the wind knocked out of me."

One of them starts to reach out a hand to help her but the third stops him, saying, in a suspicious voice and a British accent, "Where did you come from then? Do women just fall out of the sky onto our island now, they don't even need planes or helicopters?"

Willow grimaces and pushes herself up to a sitting position on her own. She decides she can answer the first question at least. "Sunnydale, California."

"Hey!" The big guy who tried to help her before grins broadly. "High five!" It's awkward to give it to him, but he crouches down and their hands touch. "I'm from L.A., but my buddy Johnny grew up in Sunnydale. Him and his mom left, um, after some of that stuff that happened."

"Yeah," says Willow, "my girlfriend and me too, after some of the other stuff that happened."

"So, um," after an awkward pause, "I'm Hurley, this is Charlie and Jin. We were on Oceanic flight 815." She feels like he's about to add, _and we're all straight_.

"Willow. Sorry, guys, didn't mean to embarrass you. Don't you have gay people on your island?"

"Hard to say," says the British guy, Charlie, "the way people keep secrets around here. Not to mention the way more people keep crawling out of the jungle." Willow ignores the way he frowns at her.

"Scott and Steve?" Jin says hesitantly.

"Well, they were traveling together," says Hurley, "but I was never really sure…"

"Huh," says Willow. "What about Jews? Am I the only one of those on your island too?"

"Isn't Steve Jewish?" says Charlie.

"Dude, that was Scott."

"Really?"

"Hey, why don't you ask them? Is that weird for you? 'Cause if it is, I don't mind asking them for you. It's more awkward for me to be the only one…" _Not that I'm not used to it_, she thinks.

"It's not so much that, as, one of 'em got killed a while back, and the other, um, I just haven't seen him around for a while. Have you guys?"

They shake their heads and avoid looking at Willow.

"Killed?" she says.

"There was this guy," says Hurley. "We thought he'd been on the plane with us, only he turned out to be, like, not."

"Other," Jin says again.

Willow finds that she can walk by then, and as the four of them make their way out of the jungle toward the beach Willow learns about more of the adventures, disasters, and dark secrets that have come out since the crash. The more she hears, the more frustrated she gets.

"You know," she says, "I may not have been on a deserted island before, but people used to try to kill my friends and me. A _lot_. And…okay, sometimes they managed to do it, but most of the time we helped each other out and we got through it. You'd think, all of you being stranded on an island together, you'd do your best to stick together and help each other out. But instead it's all, 'Oh, but I never told you I've got this secret stash of weapons,' or, 'Finders keepers, losers weepers, just because I've got medicine and you need it doesn't mean I should give it to you,' or, "Look-y look, I pretended to be one of you but I'm actually a secret psychopath who kidnaps pregnant women!'"

"Yeah, well," Hurley says unhappily. "I mean, yeah, but not us. It's these other guys, Jack, Locke, Ben, Sayid – they're always trying to get ahead of each other. But us guys, Charlie and Jin and me, and Sun and Claire and Rose and Bernard – we all get along pretty good. Don't worry, we won't attack you in your sleep or anything."

A shadow passes over Charlie's face as they walk through the last of the palm trees and then step out onto the beach.

"Just like sunny California, huh, Willow?" Hurley says, smiling. "Same ocean anyway."

Nothing else is the same, of course. The sand is finer, whiter, and the beach is covered with make-shift dwellings, shelters for one or two people. It's lovely though, in its own way, and Willow thinks it won't be too bad, staying here for a few days or weeks until she's strong enough to find her way back. Hurley introduces Willow to the women and men that come to greet them, and they're cautious but not unfriendly. Willow may still feel a little out of place, but it seems there will be a place for her.


End file.
